AN: Ahh, I'm so close to 300 reviews! :3 THANK YOU to everyone who has left me such wonderful and encouraging comments. You guys are what keeps me going. *Determined to finish the story somehow*Also a big thank you to Thatreevesgirl, Orin, and Musesilver for inspiring me in various ways with their lovely fanworks. As the same with last chapter, THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS SPOILERS if you are not caught up in the manga from at least the arc where Team Kakashi and Team8 go Itachi hunting. I'm deviating from the canon in some major places, but in others things might not make sense if you don't know the happenings of those chapters. I apologize for this but rewriting whole scenes from the manga is just really exhausting.
This will (most likely) be the last chapter with Sasuke
Naruto is near breathless when his make-shift team stumbles back to the designated rendezvous, having sprinted the entire way. His eyes dart from Kakashi to Sai to Shino to Kiba back to Kakashi, almost uncomprehending. To be sure he checks the surrounding area, scrutinizing the treeline, before glancing back to Kakashi then Sai, Shino, Kiba, and back to Kakashi.
"She's late?"
Sakura was never late during a mission. That was like saying Sakura got a B on a test or Sakura asked a friend to take her shift at the hospital (even when he begged her when she used work as an excuse to get out of a date). It just didn't happen.
But before he can get too worked up, Kakashi quells, "She may have been farther away. We'll wait."
"I can look for her," he argues, shaking his head, "faster than anyone." But he isn't anxious, not very, not yet. He can ignore the stabbing feeling in his gut of what such an explosion could mean with Itachi in the area.
"And risk giving us away?" Yamato chides, and Kakashi repeats, "Just wait."
The members of Team Eight say nothing, a neutral body in the matter, and Naruto starts to deflate. Common sense is telling him that he's overreacting, that everyone is treating him like the genin he is. And hopefully for good reason.
But then Sai has to go and open his mouth. "The hag was in like-company; she'll be fine."
He's trying to assure (probably), but it's completely the wrong thing to say. Naruto launches at his face as if there isn't a 200-pound Rottweiler and Yamato latched onto his shoulders to hold him back.
When Naruto finally settles down, he plops onto the ground with legs crossed and pouting for the second time that day, but it's not just a childish reaction this time. He trusts Sakura (not to do something stupid like he would), he really does, but he doesn't know what he'll do if he has to suffer the loss of not one but both his teammates, his most precious people. His most precious person.
And to not be able to fight to bring her back. . . to have to really give up the only person who's ever loved him. . . It makes his eyes grow all wide and watery, and he doesn't even notice when Pakkun comes to sit in his lap in an attempt of soothing.
Half and hour leaks by in this manner of tense waiting, and finally Kakashi admits that the nin-dogs he sent out before Naruto's group even arrived haven't found her. He's going to try re-summoning one of the two he'd assigned to her (because if she's hurt and they're with her, he doesn't want to drag both of them away) to find out what's happened.
When the mo-hawked runt appears in a billow of smoke, he's sniffling and rubbing his paws over his eyes. "Sakura-chaaan," he howls. "I promised not to let her dowwwn."
Naruto doesn't wait to hear the rest. He's shot forward like a coil that's been sprung, is everywhere—the sky the ground the trees—and is running in every direction, multiplied into the seeming thousands. It's too much for Yamato or Kakashi or anyone to be able to control, and even though there's the risk he'll lose himself in his grief and become a mini-version of the rampaging Nine-tails, they let him go. There's not much else they can do other than listen to the little nin-dog's story and hope for the best.
Time has forgotten them in this space between spaces, in this place that shouldn't exist. They could be trapped forever for all she knows, lost in the belly of a beast in the pit of a black hole. But it feels so good it hurts to be like this, tangled up in Sasuke-kun in the warmth of darkness and isolation. It should be scary, but she can almost hear his assurance—Don't worry. I always have a plan.
For a long while (which may be mere seconds for all she knows), there is nothing but her and him and the beat of his heart against her chest.
She has time to think.
Sakura thinks, there are many things she has experienced in her life as a kunoichi, not all of them pleasant.
She's given life and taken it away. She's witnessed torture first hand, partaken in the unsavory task herself—that's one of the things they don't tell when you're still a naïve, hopeful girl of not yet fourteen, that one of the key resources of a medical specialist is the skill to sever, gouge, break, mend and hurt again, the ability to sustain a prisoner's consciousness through the full course of questioning. (Sometimes during these sessions she imagines she understands what happened to Kabuto a bit—somewhere along the way he stopped denying the displeasure, the revulsion, and realized he liked it.) In some ways she's more aged, more hardened than either of her boys, though they'd never admit it. And part of her hopes Naruto never stops long enough to understand, to consider the consequences of the full range of her abilities.
So while Sakura has experienced many unsavory things in her short lived career, she's never before crawled from the sizzling carcass of a summoned beast. But here she is being lead by the hand, and only once they've emerged into the crisp air of still being alive does Sasuke remember to stop touching her.
He looks about as confused as she feels.
She doesn't like seeing him like this, so lost and unlike himself so she gives him something he can hold onto: anger. "We came to kill Itachi," she says, which is mostly true. (There were many things she could have said in the black snake womb, but she couldn't utter a sound then, was too weak to shatter the moment.)
Predictably, his eyes pop with a brighter redness. They glower, and she sees this because she doesn't bother to look away.
"I told you two to stay out of this," he hisses. "Don't you dare try to cheapen this for me."
This is my revenge. She can feel the thought like a slap in the face, but she doesn't know what to say. 'I'm sorry but I'm not going to back down,' just doesn't seem to cut it.
"Who's the bitch? We don't really have time to be picking up strays—Karin's bad enough."
Sasuke's gotten better with his eyes even if he's not Itachi-level, so at first she thinks the sneering shark-boy, resting a giant-blade atop one shoulder to her left is part of an induced hallucination. She blinks rapidly, mouth forming a surprised 'O' but as soon as the reality of the situations dawns on her, she lashes out with an unexpected uppercut. It's hardly a tenth of her power (such is the sacrifice of speed; he'd have seen the build-up coming a mile away), but it's still sufficient to send the cleaver-welding ninja splattering into a pulpy puddle of gloop.
Sakura cocks an eyebrow but doesn't verbally question the presence of the deceased Demon of the Midst's sword.
Sasuke betrays nothing in his expression, but she can tell the show of strength has surprised him. He's seen Suigestu dissolve a punch without allowing it to affect the whole of his body—to think that she shattered him so effortlessly. "Then you really did kill Sasori of the Red Sand," he says, confirming the rumor to himself—one he'd been loathe to believe. It seemed both of his teammates had grown without him—thrived outside of his presence. It stings him and that in and of itself annoys him.
"Keeyawh, that stung," the puddle whines, struggling to reconstruct himself, to solidify. "Remind me to return the favor in a couple minutes."
"Suigestsu."
One word is all it takes to get him inline, and suddenly Sakura understands.
"You're with him—them. You have a new team."
She will not cry.
"That's no concern of yours."
And just like that this meeting is over; Sakura whips out her flare-gun, pointing it to the sky, but before she can get a round off, Sasuke's blocked the trigger with his fingers, wound his body around hers. A breath hitches in her chest—he knows exactly how to handle her. One hand has come to grip the back of her neck, cradling the base of her skull.
"Are you going to try to kill me now, too?" she questions, voice surprisingly calm.
He speaks low enough so that only she will hear when he says, "Don't tell Naruto about this. . . it'd only hurt him."
She stiffens against him, tense with anger rather than caution. She remembers a time he'd requested of her the same thing—for Naruto's sake—to keep quiet during the chuunin exams.
"We're not like that anymore. I won't lie to him."
"Let's go, Sasuke; whoever she is, she'll just drag you down."
She's sure Sasuke can feel the deep-rooted tremble of chakra surging into her arms suddenly at the cutting insult, but she doesn't care. She's going to kill his new teammate, stab him through the gut with his own impossibly heavy sword.
"Please," Sasuke begs, breathes it against her ear.
And then she's alone. She sinks to the ground, weeping because it hurts, it really hurts this time. Her chakra leaks out of her, settles in her gut like an icy swirling and that hurts, too.
Sakura looks up, eyes wide, when she feels a hand gingerly touch the top of her head, jolted back into reality. She doesn't know how long it's been since she lost herself in her mini-break down, but the tears have long since dried on her cheeks. She realizes at that she's forgotten to launch a flare and yet somehow Naruto has managed to find her regardless. In that moment it seems only natural that he would be the one to come to her side.
She doesn't say anything, and he doesn't say anything either—they just look at each other and then he drops to his knees, throwing his arms around her in a suffocating embrace. He's panting or hyperventilating maybe and she can feel his heart hammering against her chest where they're pressed together as if one.
He doesn't ask, What happened? like she expects him to, just lets out keening laugh-sob and says, "I found you."
"Yeah," she says stupidly, but her brain and her body are acting all sluggish, and she can't think of something better to say. Tell him, her mind is screaming at her, but she's so very drained, and she wants nothing more than to close her eyes and just breathe for a minute in the safety of her teammate's (this teammate's) arms.
And then before she knows it, Kakashi and Yamato and Team Eight have arrived. It seems all too quickly for her taste even if it should be a relief. At least, she thinks, she was able to spend a little bit of time with Naruto picking themselves back up together before they have to put on their ninja straight-faces and pretend that nothing is wrong and that nothing ever kills them inside because they're professionals on a mission.
Naruto is reluctant to pull back, but acts accordingly when Sakura shifts away from him.
Kakashi, offers a subdued, "You gave us quite a scare, Sakura," which is probably his way of saying, I'd figured you for dead.
"How did you. . . ?" she asks, unsure if the lot of them had followed Naruto or if she really had sent up a flare and was so far in shock that she'd forgotten about it. Of course, Team Eight is a tracking based cell of which Kiba is quick to remind her.
Kiba puffs out his chest with a fangy, boastful grin. "I've got the best nose in Konoha, aint that right, Akamaru? And you—" he turns to Sakura with an exaggerated sniff, "smell of Sasuke, all over."
She also smells of adrenaline and fear and snake-bile and Naruto, and if he didn't know better it would be hard to resist the urge to nuzzle along her neck for a better whiff of this cocktailed scent of survival. (It makes him feel wolfish, energetic and enthralled, even if he knows it's wrong on some level to think of a fellow Konoha shinobi in the category of prey. But he learned long ago that certain animalistic actions just aren't socially understood or accepted outside of his clan so he keeps himself in check.
Naruto takes the news hard, wearing the disbelief and subsequent hurt all over his face, and she wants to punch Kiba in the gut for his tactlessness and for outing her before she was ready.
Naruto draws back a little, draws away from her and is about to mumble something when he to everyone's surprise (his own included) gasps a sharp intake of air and pops into a smoky non-existence. Sakura gapes at his disappearance, never having realized it was a clone, a substitute-Naruto, though she should have, and then the tears come again, quick and without warning as not only does his physical absence leave an ache, but the sudden dismissal of the technique in this instance could only mean a very bad thing. Something has happened to Naruto.
Naruto coughs, pounding a fist to his chest to dislodge the pain there as he falls to his knees in the patchy grass. The crow had been hard to swallow and unexpected; it was all beak and wet feathers and disturbingly magical in nature, chilling where it coiled and lodged behind his breastbone. And even though Itachi is gone now, Naruto is scared. There is a part of Itachi inside of him now—has a hold over him now, but even more frightening is the emotional information he's gained in the moment his technique was broken. It's nearly too much for Naruto to handle, he who is used to assimilating thousands of memories in a fraction of a second as if shuffling slips of paper into a neat stack in the recesses of his brain.
On one hand, it's a relief that Sakura is safe, but on the other he's overwhelmed with a sense of betrayal, an ache at knowing Sasuke and her were together whether on purpose or accidental, and even though he doesn't know what happened yet, he knows that Sakura was going to keep quiet about it. And then there's the matter of Sasuke (isn't there always the matter of Sasuke?) Hearing the news as another version of himself while literally running into him and foricbly being dispelled--all the while Sasuke didn't even bat an eye, and seeing the teammate who rejected him willingly traveling with another team—it was both shocking and hurtful, and as Naruto tilts forward on his hands and knees, choking and crying, he doesn't know for the life of him what to do.